Ashoka Buildcon, a leading highway player in India, has an impressive portfolio of 39 PPP projects, which is the largest in number in the country. With 40 years of experience in the core business of Highway Construction, the company has developed an integrated business model that helps it maintain control across the entire value chain. It has a footprint in 21 states where it has completed prestigious projects. Some of the notable projects include the following: Twin Bridges across River Roopnarayan in West Bengal, Eastern Peripheral Expressway Package IV, Indore Edlabad Highway, East Coast Road: Pondicherry to Chennai and many more.
Special Features of the 8-lane Vadodara Kim Expressway in the State of Gujarat
The Bridge has been designed to ensure that all navigational requirements are fulfilled. Of 2.22 km in length, it is being constructed using Segmental Box Girder Technology. Plans are for 2 carriage ways of 4 lane each with a deck width of 21.25 m each.
The Extradosed portion of the Bridge is 1020-m long with a 400-m and a 600-m of the Bridge Viaduct on each side of the Extradosed portion. The span length of the Bridge Viaduct on either side of the Extradosed bridge is 48 m.
The Extradosed portion consists of 2 modules with a length of 510 meters each. The span arrangement of each module portion is (1x75 + 3x120 + 1x75) and will be supported on twin pylons. There will be such 16 twin-Pylon Piers, each with a height of 13 meters from deck level and 33 meters from ground level.
The project work commenced in December 2018 and the mobilization activities started at breakneck speed immediately thereafter. The land was acquired for temporary and permanent works at a frantic pace with the support of NHAI PIU.
Ashoka Buildcon has done Capex of around ₹250 crores in this mega project. It has bought brand new equipment of over ₹150 cr. They include 15 Gantry Cranes, 2 Launching Girders, 3 Vibro Hammers, and 8 pairs of specially designed Segment Lifters - each of 150-ton capacity, more than 80 Pre-Stressing Jacks, and Power Packs. Other than this, 4 Casting Yards with a cumulative length of 2 km have been commissioned at a cost of ₹40 cr for casting of 1228 segments using the Long Line method.
The company has mobilized more than 17800 MT of Structural Steel worth ₹71 cr for temporary/axillary works, in addition to the overall project requirement of 30,000 MT of Reinforcement, 3000 MT HT Strand, and 700 MT of Extradosed Cables, imported from Germany. The total concrete of only the Bridge portion is more than 1,68,000 cubic meters. In the Bridge Viaduct portion, piling was completed in all respects in a period of 4 months and almost 90% of the pier cap has been completed. The segment launching works was started in October 2019.
In the Extradosed Bridge portion, the geo-technical Investigation was done by mounting rotary bore machines on a specially designed barge arrangement in the river portion and simultaneously work was begun to construct to 600-m Temporary Bridges designed with a safety capacity of carrying a 150-ton load.
Project Status
Pilling work is completed in all respects in a period of 4 months by 5 high-capacity Hydraulic Piling Rigs with more than 65 m Kelly length. By Dec 2020, 100% of the sub-structure work was completed. The Pile Cap work was carried out on a phased manner owing to tidal variations of more than 5 meters. As on date all Pile Caps, Lower Pylons and Pier table has been completed in all respects.The launching work of the Viaduct and the Extradosed portion is going on very fast by using all the 8 sets of the segment lifter and 2 sets of the Launching Girder. At present, Ashoka Buildcon has launched 828 segments out of 1228, while the remaining 400 segments launching will be completed by June 2021, as per the program.
Ashoka Buildcon’s Notable Projects
The project was so daunting that for 10 years no construction company came forward to take it up. Ashoka rose to the challenge and constructed the bridges in an impressive time period of 12 months against an allotted time of 30 months. Ashoka deployed technologies that were tried first time in Indian bridge construction history such as the 323-m steel girder assembly from one end of the river, use of segmental launching in bridge structure, etc. The project was awarded the silver award by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways under the category ‘Innovation in design.
Twin Bridges across River Roopnarayan in West BengalEastern Peripheral Expressway Package IV
This project carried a lot of importance since it required creating a bypass around Delhi to relieve the capital city from the ever-increasing pollution. Ashoka Buildcon completed the stretch 500 days ahead of schedule. It also set a new benchmark in the construction of Railway Over Bridges by creating one in only 100 working days, as against the normal time taken of 2 to 2.5 years.
